What happens to existing agreements when NBN takes over?

We in North Gosford are about to be cut over to the NBN, whether we like it or not, but that’s a different matter.

As a retired – unemployed – whatever computer engineer of over 40 years standing, I have a couple of observations: The contract with my existing provider binds me until August. Should I have a desire to change providers, I am worried that either I will have to pay an early termination fee, or that I will be forced to either extend the current contract or sign a new one with my existing provider. I cannot seem to get a straight answer. All sorts of wild claims have been made about the benefi ts of the mixed-mode scheme, yet I simply cannot see how fi bre-optic speeds can be achieved over the existing (and ancient) copper lines. This will violate everything that I was taught at University. Testing my existing download – upload speeds with www.bandwidthplace. com, I get about 1.2Mbps (megabits/second) down and 0.6Mbps up. It will be interesting to perform the same test after the change, and I urge all readers to do the same and to see for themselves whether or not there has been any improvement. You can put as much lipstick on a pig as you like, but at the end of the day, it’s still a pig.

Email,

15 Mar 2015

Dave Horsfall,

North Gosford